MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 



531 



influence into the very social fabric of the surrounding 

 towns. Nearly every inhabitant of the district, who pre- 

 tends to such a thing as a garden, will take the itinerant 

 visitor to the back porch, or veranda, or terrace, as the 

 case may be, and point out how he ingeniously contrived 

 the arrangement of his garden so that the snow-white 

 peak of Mount Rainier terminated the vista along the 

 major axis of his garden. While no claim is specifically 

 laid to originality and uniqueness on the part of the 

 garden owner 

 using our na- 

 tional park as 

 the major ele- 

 ment in his 

 plan, the visi- 

 tor will, never- 

 theless, come 

 away with the 

 impression that 

 there is at least 

 one man in 

 Washington 

 who appre- 

 ciates the 

 beauty of one 

 of nature's 

 master- 

 pieces. If, 

 however, he 

 visits more 

 than one gar- 

 den, he will, 

 more than 

 likely, conclude 

 that the inhabi- 

 tants of the 

 districts are not 

 at all sociable, 

 for none seems 

 to know that 

 his neighbor's 

 garden is axed 

 on the same 

 glorious peak. 



The moun- 

 tain is of such 

 a commanding 



possession and control of the Park's development, and 

 this feud grew to such an extent that many dear friends 

 were estranged and there was naught but bitterness 

 between them. The story is told of one of our prominent 

 national characters, who, in his visits to these two cities 

 for the purpose of gathering the autumn crop of votes, 

 became so confused that he could not keep in mind when 

 he should call it Mount Tacoma and when Mount Rainier. 

 His secretary had advised him, therefore, in his speeches 



in the two cities 



to call 

 " the 

 tain." 



it only 

 moun- 

 At the 



THE NISQUALLY GLACIER 



The snout of Nisqually Glacier reaches down to within a few hundred yards from the highway. The dark mass 

 in the center is the glacier, although it looks more like a heap of earth than a giant cake of ice. The first view of 

 a glacier's toes is always one that destroys any youthful ideal as to the "huge wall of sparkling ice." 



end of an ardu- 

 ous day in 

 Seattle he 

 closed his 

 speech before 

 a large gather- 

 ing with his im- 

 pressions of the 

 beautiful snow- 

 capped peak 

 and terminated 

 his sentence 

 with the words 

 " Mount Taco- 

 ma." His sec- 

 retary was on 

 the platform 

 and when he 

 heard this he 

 uttered a deep 

 groan and said, 

 in a voice that 

 was plainly 

 audible to the 

 twelve hundred 

 enraptured 

 listeners, "Hell, 

 now you've lost 

 twelve hundred 

 votes ! " 



An account 

 of the struggle 

 and how the 

 trend of battle 



height that it 

 is plainly visible from Seattle and Tacoma, in fact 

 so much so, that to the residents of these two cities 

 it has become part and parcel of their local scenery. What, 

 then, could be more natural than a struggle for its control ? 

 Before its discovery by the whites, the mountain was 

 called Tacoma by the Clickitats, Yakimas and other 

 Indian tribes of the district. So far as I have been able 

 to learn, this name means " the great snow." The nam- 

 ing of the peak, " Mount Rainier," in honor of Rainier, 

 the famous explorer, has therefore, for many years, been 

 a thorn in the side of the residents of the city of Tacoma. 

 A feud finally developed between the two cities for the 



ran through 

 years would fill a small volume which, as a matter of 

 fact, has no part in this argument. Suffice it to say,, 

 however, that the hatchet has been buried and there is 

 now an organization composed of citizens of both 

 communities who work in apparent harmony for the 

 benefit of the Park ; so much so, in fact, that by virtue of 

 persistent pounding they have secured a sufficient appro- 

 priation from Congress to actually build some new bits 

 of road in the Park. 



There are few places in the world one may drive an 

 automobile right up to the snout of a mighty glacier. 

 The only place in the United States that I know of where 



